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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29291742">shadows settled on the place that you left.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/avcrozz/pseuds/avcrozz'>avcrozz</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>VALORANT (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Pyromania</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:08:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29291742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/avcrozz/pseuds/avcrozz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoru cannot cope without Phoenix.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Phoenix/Yoru (VALORANT)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>shadows settled on the place that you left.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Gonna give a warning here since I had no mcfucking idea how to tag this fic: </p><p>!This fic deals with serious and sensitive topics that could potentially be triggering! Such as:<br/>-Pyromania<br/>-Violence/Death/Gore<br/>-Mentioned/Implied Suicide<br/>Please read at your own risk and don't read if you may be triggered by the above things! I don't want to hurt anyone ♡</p><p>With that being said, this messy one shot is a result of me trying to put more detail in my scenes, my characters' emotions, and messing about with tenses too. Not sure if I pulled it off.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>This is the safest way to go. Nobody gets hurt.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Perhaps Yoru had lied. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was definitely the one hurting right now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, sometimes he would wonder if it were possible to die from heartache. Sometimes he would wish the answer to the question were “yes”. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He truly believed that not being alive at all would be much preferable to the constant, dull, panging ache in his chest. And no matter how much he might cry and scream and howl and plead and </span>
  <em>
    <span>demand, </span>
  </em>
  <span>nothing would ever make it go away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yoru could bend reality and dimension itself to his will, but he could not control </span>
  <em>
    <span>feelings. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And he hates it. Hates the feeling of being so unable to wrench control. Hates the feeling of pure </span>
  <em>
    <span>uselessness.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nineteen days since Yoru had left. Since he’d seen </span>
  <em>
    <span>him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>To say he looked like a disaster would be a severe understatement.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bright hazel eyes had turned dark. Cloudy. Somber. Not even a spark of the cheer that once bounced within those shaded irises. Dark, strained bags had formed under his eyes, the result of barely getting a wink of sleep each night. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he slept, his dreams were plagued by nightmares. Of what happened. Of what they might do to Phoenix.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of how truly, utterly useless he really was. Each time, he’d awake screaming, pleading, sometimes unable to breathe, tears flooding fruitlessly out of dark, puffed eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not that it differed much from his waking world. Yoru’s mind always wandered, wandered to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>possibilities, </span>
  </em>
  <span>replaying what happened. Flames licking buildings. Gunfire echoing off burning walls. Screams of the soon-deceased.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t stand it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Many a night Yoru had sat, eyes puffy and irritated, the tears never ceasing. He’d eye his Sheriff, holstered at his hip, thinking of how simple, how painless it would be to turn it on himself. A permanent end to...everything.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But, Yoru pondered, everything meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Including...Phoenix.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The chances of Phoenix and Yoru meeting again were closer to zero than anything. And he knew it. Just the thought of the fire-bird made Yoru’s chest swell painfully with desire and lust and longing and </span>
  <em>
    <span>agony. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But even if the chances were zero...he’d take them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Once, Yoru had burnt a building. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He knew it would kill. He knew that, morally, it was completely wrong. Unjust. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Undeserved. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he found himself unwilling to care. The world had lost its morals and so had he. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Screams and coughs and cries and pleads for help echoed out of the burning walls, and it brought a pang of satisfaction to Yoru’s aching swelling chest, to know that </span>
  <em>
    <span>somebody </span>
  </em>
  <span>out there would feel as he had. So helpless, so useless. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he liked that feeling. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yoru stood, so close to the hungry inferno, that it seared and reddened his pale skin, blackened smoke forcing him to cough and splutter out of his control. He held out a hand, close as he might, until the intense heat forced him to retract it, angry red welt on the pads of two of his fingers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He gazed at the fast-reddening burn in fascination, gazed at his blackened, burnt glove. Once, Yoru would have gone into a fit of fury at anything becoming of his precious gloves, but now? It reminded him. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>reminded him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For once, in a good way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The smells were overpowering. Searing, burning flesh. Smoked wood. Though he still coughed and hacked - he enjoyed it all. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It reminded him of Phoenix.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sir? I’m going to need to bring you in for questioning.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yoru turned his head lazily to examine whoever dared to disrupt him from his thoughts. A rather short man, chubby, in an official-looking uniform, grim look in his eyes, clipboard and pen in his hands. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re awfully close to the scene of the crime,” he commented, “so we’re going to need to question you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When his gaze locked with Yoru, the rift-walker did not mistake the slight shock, ever so present hint of worry that crossed the officer’s face. He looked like shit. Yoru knew that he did. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Burnt hand formed a claw. Yoru slashed an ugly hole through reality itself, and he was gone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>~~~</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Since losing his lover, Yoru developed an acute fascination with fire. How it consumed. How it took all, with no mercy nor care for what it destroyed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And yet, in spite of the destruction, it was so perfectly capable of being so warm, so comforting, so essential to life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just like Phoenix.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>~~~</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yoru’s howls and sobs and cries could be heard from miles away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes were squeezed shut. From pain, partly, but mostly from the shame of it. He could not even look at Phoenix. </span>
</p><p>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Phoenix, sitting on top of him. Phoenix, blowing black smoke from the tip of his gun. Phoenix, his hand pinning Yoru beneath him, Yoru’s dark blood flowing over his digits and pooling into the floor, as the rift-walker cried and sobbed and pleaded and gurgled. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know I would always come for you,” Phoenix says. His voice is...strange. There is no humour. No laughing. No joking. No teasing. Only disappointment. Coldness. A word Yoru is very unused to associating with Phoenix. </span>
</p><p>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Yoru forces his eyes to open, to meet Phoenix’s. His head is pounding. He would surely pass out soon. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Phoenix,” he pleads, voice punctuated by broken, shaky whimpers. “I need you, please. Why are you doing this?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You went from a killer to a murderer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In an instant, Phoenix’s voice had gone from dangerously quiet, to the roar of an echoing blaze. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I missed you too, Yoru. But my reaction was not to kill hundreds of innocents, just to try and feel you again.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yoru shakes his head wildly, hair morphing from its usually tame, tidy state to messy and wild. This was not happening. It had to be another of his dreams.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re not who I used to love. It’s better for everyone this way.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Phoenix’s weight was gone. The fire-bird stands up, giving Yoru one last cold look before he starts to walk away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Goodbye, Yoru.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No!” Yoru yowls, clambering, forcing himself to his feet despite his entire body protesting wildly against it. “I need you! You can’t leave me again!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The loud, echoing shot of a gun rings out true and clear, and Yoru crumples, body going limp in an instant. Even more blood pools now, turning the grass beneath the once-riftwalker to a dark crimson.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Smoke rises from Phoenix’s Frenzy. He approaches the lifeless corpse of his now-former lover. Strokes Yoru’s quickly wintering cheek, his face now forever frozen into a dull expression of pain. Phoenix wishes he looked more peaceful. His heart hurts, even though he knows he made the right choice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hopes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Yoru. If only things had ended differently.” Tears pricked angrily at Phoenix’s eyes now, and the fire-bird aggressively wiped them away with his sleeve as they formed. He would not cry. Not here.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He left the scene, leaving the crows and the coyotes to descend upon his once-lover.</span>
</p>
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